With all the drama in the skies recently, the almost farcical tale of Britain’s oldest newlyweds has only just now landed on news desks.

Geoff and Sheila Bliss, aged 84 and 80 respectively, “waited more than 70 years to get married”, explains the Daily Telegraph, only to see their honeymoon anything but blissful - thanks to the combination of high winds over Madeira and the collapse of Monarch airways.

The octogenarian lovebirds, who met as teenagers but only tied the knot as widowers, boarded an Easyjet flight bound for what should have been a three-hour forty-minute flight to Funchal on Monday October 2.

Thirteen hours later - after having been diverted to Tenerife and re-routed to Faro - they landed back where they started in Bristol with little to show from their romantic getaway than two empty bags of peanuts and very sore joints.

Mr Bliss explained he, his wife - who suffers from arthritis in both knees - and all the other passengers “couldn’t get off the plane” throughout their dismal ordeal “because Monarch had just gone bust” and there was no available accommodation anywhere.

“The pilot phone head office and they said ‘come back to Bristol’.

"The plane was running out of food, but they still made us pay for everything”, he added.

The couple was offered a new flight bright and early the next morning (5.30am ) but by then the whole allure of the word ‘honeymoon’ had irreparably soured.

An easyJet spokesman confirmed that its flights to and from Funchal last week were affected due to high winds, saying that “whilst this is outside of our control we would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused as a result of the weather conditions”.